


Human Capabilities

by The Curator of The Sands (GrimRevolution)



Series: Voltron Whump Week 2017 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Non-Consensual, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Pidge!whump, Voltron Whump Week 2017, mentions of body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/The%20Curator%20of%20The%20Sands
Summary: The Galra were curious.Curious meant experiments.Katie Holt was a scientist, but she didn't quite believe in their methods.AU: Katie went on the Kerberos Mission, Matt was the one left at home.





	Human Capabilities

It wasn't supposed to be like this—not right now at least. Katie knew she was supposed to be back on her own planet, possibly celebrating her and Matt's 19th birthday instead of being here with these strange bat-cat hybrids. Shiro was in the bed across from her, she could see the purple light glinting off his metal prosthetic. They had cut his arm off—sliced it through the bicep—and replaced it with a machine.

There had been nothing wrong with his normal one, the  _organic_  one. It was the Druids who were wondering what the human body could endure and what it couldn't. Cutting off a limb had been something the human body had endured since there were wars. It didn't seem to have surprised them—there were many Galran with prosthetics—it was the way the human body was able to accept the metal and adapt to the prosthetic.

Already Shiro was using it as if it was his own flesh and blood arm.

She had heard their mutters as the guards had dragged him, bleeding and unconscious, back to their cell. Katie was sure she had heard the druids mutter something, the glowing eyes on their masks had focused on her while her five-foot-nothing body had tried to drag Shiro's body over to his bed. Their voices had a strange echoing to it that made it hard to understand at a distance.

Probably the point, if she was being honest with herself. 

Now, Katie was curled up on her bed, knees tucked against her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, and leaned back against the wall. The rhythmic walking of the guards was like a continuous tick-tocking of a clock and her head fell forward before she picked it back up again, trying to keep her eyes open. Shiro was still sleeping, having barely moved. 

Her body felt so heavy with the metal wall was warm from the engines and the heat flowing through the pipes to keep the rest of the ship heated. Katie's forehead dropped inch by inch until her cheek was against her kneecap. The guards continued passing by, counting out the time with their footsteps as the humans and other prisoners slept.

More footsteps changed the pattern and the door to the cell open, startling Katie away. She blinked at the dim light and tried to rub the tiredness out of her eyes. One of the Galran scientists—dressed in the normal armor covering their torsos but had something that could have been a smock if it didn't look so much like a skirt. They didn't have the helmets, either, and instead had masks covering their mouths and noses instead which is how she knew that their gazes landed on Shiro first before turning to her.

Katie stumbled through her exhaustion, almost tripping over her own feet, and stood in front of Shiro. Her arms were outstretched, her teeth bared. "Leave him  _alone_ _,_ " she snarled, "haven't you done  _enough_?"

One of the druids walked up and stood next to the scientists. "Yes," they hissed and Katie shivered as their voice seemed to piece her ears and her lungs, "that one."

The long days and even longer nights had taken their toll and Katie didn't have time to think about what their words had meant until her arms were grabbed by the droids and she was being dragged from the room. She tried to dig her heels in, but with bare feet only wrapped in an almost cotton-like fabric the sentries were able to drag her through the hallways with very little problem. She kept kicking though; kicking, pulling, calling them nasty names she had learned from the other prisoners.

One must have hit the mark, because a soldier hit the blunt end of his weapon against the back of her skull and Katie jerked in the droids' arms, her knees collapsing until she was behind hold up by a slave AI. 

First aliens they had to meet, and it had to be these assholes. Katie blinked slowly as the lights grew brighter, then dimmer, purple swirling with green and yellow rising and falling as if it was a heart monitor. Glancing up made her stomach roil and her two droids turned into four just as the ship did half a barrel roll and she groaned and closed her eyes, falling limp in their hold and just letting them drag her where ever it was they had in mind.

She was too tired.

Too tired to fight, too tired to do anything but let them drag her.

She excepted the strange, partially open room with the surgical table, the one they had put Shiro on and held her down, forcing her to watch as they... as they...

Katie swallowed, but they passed it and took her to a room a couple turns away to a larger room. This one had a metal safe-like looking thing in the middle with large, clear tubes sticking out of it; three on the top and three on the bottom, with twelve in total. The door was open and inside there was what looked like a mattress and nothing else.

The droids were dragging her towards it.

"No," Katie started softly, as softly as a prayer and then worked her way to tugging and kicking again, howling as loud as she could. "No, no, no,  _no_!" Her arm ripped free of one droid and she kicked at it knee, sneering as the metal broke beneath the hard bone of her heel. The other, though, wrenched her forward to the safe and threw her onto the mattress.

She had barely gotten to her feet when the door slammed shut and Katie howled again, slamming her fists against the metal. She banged and banged and screamed as she did so, her voice growing hoarse. 

"Assholes!" Seemed to be the favorite of the day, quickly followed by "Shitbags!" And "Unfortunate mistakes of the universe!" 

Against her slamming, though, the door held and she kept pounding anyways, feeling her arm ache with every hit and the bit of flesh just beneath her pinkies growing numb. When Katie stepped back she stumbled over the mattress and fell back on it and she took the time to ignore the throbbing in her arms to look around.

The walls were flat except for where the tubes came in, but even those were covered by a wire mesh she could barely stuck her pinky through. There was air coming through them, though, and she stood on the very tips of her toes so her finger could brush the bottom. 

"Commencing test one," one of the Galra said, voice distorted as it managed to work its way through the walls of the tubes, "heat."

Katie moved away from the metal walls and stood on the mattress, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet out of nervousness and felt the springs underneath the thickly padded fabric lurch. She didn't want to find out what 'heat' meant. She wanted out. She wanted to get out of this small space and go back home, go back to the arena— _anywhere_ so long as she had some control on where she could move.

A whooshing came from the tubes and hot, dry air blew across her face like she was in the middle of Texas again. There was no dust or sand—a small blessing—but she still turned away from them as well as she could. Unfortunately, the metal sucked in the heat like a fish and it wasn't long until the walls, floor, and ceiling were warm to the touch. 

"Please," Katie didn't know what was going on, she didn't  _want_  to know, but her hands were starting to ache from pounding them on the door for so long. " _Please_."

The heat continued to rise though and she was breathing in and out through her nose until that burned and she had to resort to panting. The prison uniform was sticking to her skin, sweat dripping down her forehead and plastering her hair anywhere it could reach. A desperate whine left her throat and she couldn’t lay on the mattress with the heat rising from the floor in waves that made the corners look distorted. 

Air continued to blow and the sweat started dripping down Katies face. Her hair was damp and every place where skin touched skin felt like it was burning. Arms shaking, she tried to keep herself up even though they throbbed. Skin was darkening, turning a weird purple-blue as she leaned over them and panted. 

Her tongue felt like sand paper and she licked her cracked, burning lips but the movement only made the skin split and she tasted the sharp sting of copper. It was wet though, so she tried to get as much as she could be smeared across her dry teeth and gums, even swallowed what she could to ease the burning in the back of her throat. 

She tried to swallow once—twice—then a third time and finally managed it but the movements just made everything burn  _more_.

Still, it got hotter. 

Katie's head drooped closer to the ground and her bangs slid across the floor and sizzled like an egg in a pan and she stared at the steam for a moment with slow blinking eyes that felt stickier as time went by. They burned too. Seeing things burned, breathing in burned, her skin felt dry and cracked and the blood from her lip had already caked her teeth in flakes of brown. 

 _Fuck_  it was hot.

Lifting her head immediately felt like the worst decision in her life and Katie felt the world flip over and she couldn't keep her balance and fell, sideways, on the mattress where she curled up and tried to take deep breaths to calm the roiling of her stomach.

It didn't work.

In fact, she couldn't even get breaths deep enough because her throat was aching and felt like a thousand swords were being dragged up and down the flesh. The heat was starting to piece through the mattress and Katie tried to push herself away.

Instead, her stomach lurched and she managed to get her head far enough over the side that the vomit didn't get on the bed. But it hissed and spat the moment it touched the floor. And the  _smell_ —the smell seemed the fill the container almost instantly and made her insides rebel and force whatever was in them to come out  _again_. 

Bile streamed down her nose and dried there in the next moment—same on her chin and she clawed desperately at the mattress but couldn't leave the safety of the makeshift bed on the sea of heated, grey metal. Choking on a gasp, Katie put her head back down on the fabric and couldn't even manage a desperate whine. 

Katie managed to wheeze in one last gasp before her throat closed and her body jerked, foot lashing out. She didn't have enough water for tears and her sobs jerked in her ribs and through her abdomen, but nothing came up through her throat and out her mouth. Hands were grabbing her, pulling down and a hundred hornets were stinging the inside of her lungs.

Tingling worked its way up slowly through her fingers—the odd kind of tingling like it was a tiny machine vibrating in her hands. A hard pounding started up behind her eyes in the beat of her heart that got faster and faster until it felt like a Fall Out Boy song was trying to recreate itself in her head. Her muscles and bones were jumping and fighting each other to figure out what to do and how to react but there was nothing physical there for them to fight. 

There was a fire in her lungs that burned up from her diaphragm trying to expand and retract but getting nothing that works and that same, burning sensation worked its way up slowly through her abdomen to her chest. Katie's heart roared in her ears, demanding to be let go like a lion in a cage and the panic hits like lightning while being asleep. 

Each millisecond that passed added another stone of weight to her limbs and they  _burn_ , but when they finally fall, it’s like she'd awakened a swarm of wasps that roar their anger and show her their rage in stings and bites. 

Blood was pooling in her throat, she could kind of taste it every time her chest heaved, and then...

She was  _flying_. 

oOo

Katie woke up later, the heat gone and something taped around her wrist. She blinked slowly, gaze unfocused and blurry but there was someone pressing fingers and the cool surface of machines against her skin. Licking her lips, she winced as her tongue stuck to the torn skin.

The smell of boiling bile was gone and she groaned and tried to roll over only for hands to stop her.

"Drink this," someone said and metal was pressed to her mouth. 

Obeying, because there was no other options, Katie opened her mouth and took a small sip. 

Water.  _Water._

She reached up and cupped the bowl in her hands and drank until the metal was torn from her and what was left splashed across the top of her thighs. A soft groan escaped her throat and then the tape was being ripped off her arm and something was slid back up and through the skin. 

"Dehydration levels rising," someone said. 

A large palm—almost the size of her head—slapped her across the cheek. It wasn't rough—just hard enough to give her a jolt. Katie glared at the blurry figure she guessed had done the hitting.

"Cohesion still not at one hundred percent."

There was a couple of mutters and Katie shifted. The fabric was sticky and clung to her skin and her hair had dried in clumps, matting and crunching as she moved. Something was roaring in her ears still and it was hard to hear anything over it. 

Every muscle in her body throbbed though, and that, at least, was something she could focus on.

"We don't have time for this," a third voice said and a clawed hand gripped her arm around the bicep and pulled her up. 

Something thick was plunged into the bottom left of her back and she wrenched in the grip, a soundless wail unable to escape her open mouth that was just a whistling wheeze. Heat—the gentle kind—spread from whatever had been inserted into her and then it was wrenched back out again, leaving her whining and trying to reach back to touch the spot.

"Let the quintessence heal her," that last voice spoke up again and Katie fell on her side, arms wrapped around her torso as every inch of her body shook. 

Everywhere the warmth touched, the throbbing fled. Her toes, her fingers, legs, back, even her throat. Breathing was easier and her head was lifted again for the bowl of water. Katie gulped greedily, this time able to finish it off before it was pulled away and then, she opened her eyes. 

Three scientists hovered around her; the one holding the bowl was white. Completely white with just a small bit of grey pattern on his face. His yellow eyes seemed undistinguishable on his features compared to the others whose eyes were bright against their purple fur.  

She blinked and they were closing the door again, leaving her to lay, panting, on the mattress. Though, when Katie swallowed, it didn't hurt anymore. Which was a plus? Maybe? Resting her forehead against one forearm, the young woman sighed with a slight sniffle. 

The machines began to whirl and she flinched. "No," Katie whimpered, crawling off the mattress to push desperately at the door, sitting on her knees because her legs still felt too unstable to hold her up, "no, no,  _please_ ," she begged. Air brushed against the sticky—still damp—prison clothes and she shivered. "Please!"

It was cold air this time. Just as dry, just as burning. 

"Commencing test two."

The door didn't budge. 

"Cold."

Her breath fogged up the metal and Katie didn't bother pushing at it anymore and crawled back to the mattress and curled up. Shivers wracked her small body and the air seemed to blow down on her, nipping angrily at her knuckles and cheeks. This time, she curled up as well as she could, breathing into her hands and crossing her feet over each other. 

It didn't help, but it kind of gave the  _illusion_  of doing so and that's just what she needed at the time.

Katie didn't bother moving unless it was to rub feeling and warmth back into her body. She would start with her feet, go up the calves, the thighs, her hips, sides, and then arms before she repeated the cycle over and over again.

The motions were getting harder as her teeth chattered and her hands began to shake. Each bone in her torso rattled and shook the rest like some macabre decoration and the shivers only seemed to get stronger as her breathing sped up. The air was turning patches of her revealed skin a light pink and she pressed her mouth over them, breathing and using the body warmth she had in herself to try and keep them working as well as possible.

It didn't help that her breath was damp though, and that the condensation froze in microscopic crystals in the cracks of her already dried skin. Instead, Katie wrapped her hands in the weird purple top over the full black body suit and tangled them into the fabric which helped.

A little. 

It felt like she was watching the heat leave her body each time her breath was visible and floated up until it just... vanished. Katie was an engine slowly running out of fuel and the cold pressed down on her, settling across her ribs and her thighs and the top of her head. She shivered again—harsher this time as her teeth clacked together no matter how hard she tried to force them to stay still—and the sound that rose from her chest was more of a whimper than a whine, but it was drawn out and then stopped as she ran out of air and had to take another breath.

This was not the cold people had a love-hate relationship. It wasn't the kind that brought in snow and winter wonderlands.

This was the type that stalked and hunted during the late hours of the night, the type of cold where even the sun would flee and the clouds would turn away. Each year, Katie knew enough people who had been stuck outside during this type of weather—including herself—to know that this cold?

It was dangerous. 

This time she didn't have her large coat or the thermal underwear or even a small pair of gloves. She was alone as the air bit and tore at her skin, digging itself into her blood and working its way anywhere it pleased. Her teeth were chattering constantly now, echoing against the metal and vibrating up and down her jaw until the muscles burned from being overworked. 

The strain on her jaw was fierce enough that it took a few seconds for Katie to realize that she couldn't feel her toes anymore. She couldn't sit up, that would take the energy she needed to keep warm, and she buried her head in the mattress and sobbed, unable to stop the tears from running across her cheeks. Their trails froze to her skin and the movement of her jaw made the thin layer of ice crack.

Like a rock or a bit of concreate, her skin cracked with it. The area on her cheekbones was already dried out and the cold had only made it worse. Katie didn't even know if she was bleeding. She didn't really care, either. Everything was blurring again, fading in and out of focus and she made sure to keep breathing through her nose this time. 

No matter how much the cold hurt, no matter how much she wanted to; she didn't open her lips to suck in a breath.

The skin around her nose  _hurt_. Everything about her nose hurt and she took the chance to inhale through her nose and exhale through her mouth.

Fog created a dragon that roared in the same voice as the machines before it was swept away.

She couldn't feel her fingers anymore. 

The cold air kept blowing. 

oOo

"I got you," a soft, familiar voice murmured in her ear, "I've got you, Katie."

She tried to open her eyes and groaned because everything hurt and it felt as if her eyelids had been sealed shut.

"Shhh," breath brushed across her cheek and she realized that the entire front half of her body was pressed against something warm.

Katie moaned and pressed her face further into it just as something shifted across her back and pulled her closer. "C-cold," she mumbled.

"I know," lips brushed across her forehead, "I know, you are... I thought... I thought..." The voice paused and the warm thing she was laying on rose up, paused, and then went back down. "You're  _alive_."

She didn't feel like it; her brain was still taking too long to boot back up.

"Don't worry," the whisper was gentle against her hair, "I'll take care of you."

Katie wasn't one to believe in promises.

But she believed in this one. 

**Author's Note:**

> I CAN FINALLY SLEEP JESUS LORD ALMIGHTY
> 
> god okay i hope u enjoyed this is some SHIT class writing my friends some SHIT CLASS
> 
> i'm going to bed cause i EARNED IT DAMN IT
> 
> <3<3


End file.
